'Idol' singer Lacey Brown makes stop at home

In the middle of preparing her first full-length album, Amarillo’s Lacey Brown is coming home.

Brown will perform in two house concerts and in a public concert Monday during her “New Friends” tour, which will take her through four states through Sept. 14.

She’ll sing Monday at Palace Coffee Co., 420 15th St. in Canyon, taking a break from the long process of making an album.

Brown, who finished 12th in the ninth season of “American Idol,” said she’s two songs away from completing her first full-length CD, a follow-up to her May 2011 EP “Let It Go.”

“It’s definitely a lot of real rootsy country and Americana,” Brown said. “It’s a little bit eclectic. ... We have a bunch of folk songs, some that are a little more country, some rootsy/bluegrassy tunes and one hymn.”

The variety is key, she said.

“I don’t like to listen to an album of all the same song over and over and over again,” Brown said. “This is going to be one that people will want to listen to the whole album instead of just buying the single.”

In addition to her work on her own album, Brown is busy in her new Nashville, Tenn., home with writing songs for other artists and recording demo tracks for studios.

That’s one reason she’s happy to be heading out on the road: Traveling makes it easier to write.

“I think things come to me quicker on the road because I’m not bogged down with businessy things,” she said. “I love to travel and I love singing, so when I’m on the road, I don’t have to think of anything else. The songs I write on the road, I finish up really fast. The songs in Nashville, sometimes it takes two months to write.”

Those who just know Brown from her tenure on “Idol” might be surprised that she writes or co-writes almost all of her music, but writing has long been a focus, she said.

“Even if I’m not feeling very creative, I’ll sit down and write a poem or a simple something,” she said. “I make myself write, but I don’t make myself finish something.”

Despite Brown’s unshakable link to “Idol,” don’t expect her to have any inside information about who’ll be the new judges when the show returns in January. She doesn’t even watch full episodes any more.

“Whenever I watch the show and the theme song goes on, my heart is beating so fast. I have to watch it in pieces or YouTube it,” she said.